Page:A handbook of modern Japan (IA handbookofmodern01clem).pdf/257

pure Japanese, as Hi-no-moto. It is practically the same as when we are allowed to read "etc." either as "et cetera" or as "and-so-forth" (or "i. e.," either as "id est" or as "that is").

In connection with this topic of reading, we may as well touch on the elocutionary element in reading by Japanese. Their style of reading, as amusing to us as ours is to them, may be called "sing-song": they rise and fall by monotones, and, going very rapidly without attention to the beginning or the end of a sentence, catch breath now and then by a peculiar sucking sound. They seem to make no attempt to read "with expression," as we call it; and, when they come to study English, are a great trial for a while to the foreign teacher!

The peculiarities of Japanese syntax have been so attractively discussed by Mr. Percival Lowell,^[1] that any other writer on that subject must at the outset acknowledge his indebtedness to that author. It will be unnecessary in this chapter to go into details; it will be sufficient to mention several of the points in which Japanese and English syntax are different. For instance, a Japanese noun knows no distinction (in form) of gender and number; a Japanese adjective or adverb has no terminational comparison; a Japanese verb is proof to the distinctions of number and person. In the Japanese language the connectives which correspond to our prepositions are placed after their nouns; the verbs always come last; our